• News

Samurai Warriors 5's roster started with two main characters & expanded around them

Koei Tecmo built a story around two main characters in Samurai Warriors 5 and the rest of the new and returning characters were added in relation to them.

TJ Denzer

May 12, 2021 12:33 PM

1

With Samurai Warriors 5, Koei Tecmo intends to go back to the beginning of the saga and create a game in the Sengoku period with opportunities and features the team could not pursue before. A part of this “fresh re-imagining” of the saga includes the way the story was built up, as well as the roster around it. So what went into deciding which familiar and new Sengoku era legends would be returning to the roster? According to Koei Tecmo President and COO Hisashi Koinuma, it began with deciding on two characters that make up the heart of the story and then building the roster out from them.

Who are those two characters? Koinuma revealed in our recent Samurai Warriors 5 interview that it’s none other than Nobunaga Oda and Mitsuhide Akechi.

“We chose the characters based on which we felt would be vital to make an appearance in the story,” Koinuma explained. “As we chose that Nobunaga Oda and Mitsuhide Akechi would be the main characters in this installment, we selected characters that would be appropriate to be active in their stories.”

Fans of the series or Japanese history may very well recall Akechi’s service to Oda before the legendary confrontation that would result in Oda’s death. And so it should come as no surprise that the game’s 27-character roster will be composed of Mitsuhide Akechi, Nobunaga Oda, and the numerous subordinates, confidents, enemies, and opponents in relation to those two. With the game focused on going back to the beginning and telling their saga in a grand and unique way, it should be interesting to see how the rest of the roster shakes out and what familiar and new faces we see as a result.

Samurai Warriors is slated for a launch on Nintendo Switch, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this coming Summer 2021. Stay tuned for further details such as an official release date and be sure to check out our Samurai Warriors coverage for the latest on the game.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.